Star Wars Week: A Tuesday 2fer

I intended to start Star Wars Week last night, but I’m running a little behind, so here are two posts for Tuesday so I can catch up.

Movies

In this first post I have to say “Why Star Wars?” “What about Star Wars is worth a week of posts?” The answer: There are so many, many reasons:

1. Star Wars redefined the genre of science fiction/fantasy movies. It is the daddy and granddaddy of all the special effects heavy extravaganzas that have come after it, including its own sequels and prequels. Watch your favorite special effects movie and then watch Star Wars knowing that Lucas did it first.

2. Not only did Star Wars set the bar for special effects, George Lucas’ ILM is responsible for most of the graphic animations in most of the other movies since.

3. Beyond ILM, Lucas’ team gave birth to many different very famous companies including THX sound and Pixar. (Yes, Disney’s recent purchase of Lucasfilms is just bringing the kids back together.)

4. Many film-makers were inspired by Star Wars to go into their chosen profession. Included among those are James Cameron (Titanic, Avatar) and Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings, King Kong).

5. Finally (only for this purpose; there are many other reasons), Star Wars has become such a part of our culture that people who don’t know the movie and have no interest in it know the story. They can quote from it as easily as I can, and I’ve seen it over 100 times. For example, “Luke, I am your father.” Who doesn’t know that line or its context? Almost no one.

Are you convinced? Now you can see that a week is hardly time enough to give to so important a subject. Nonetheless I will try.